


we'll take the trail (marked on your father's map)

by arabesque05



Category: Hockey RPF, Sports RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-07
Updated: 2013-10-07
Packaged: 2017-12-28 16:28:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/994076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arabesque05/pseuds/arabesque05
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sid’s all for literacy and culture, but when traveling for away games, he prefers to maintain a baseline of constant, simmering hypercompetitiveness. Well, that’s sort of a lie: Sid tends to do that even outside of away games; any games; hockey, as a whole; okay, hypercompetitiveness is sort of Sid’s general life philosophy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we'll take the trail (marked on your father's map)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [caperg33l](https://archiveofourown.org/users/caperg33l/gifts).



> This one time, [caperg33l ](http://archiveofourown.org/users/caperg33l/pseuds/caperg33l) asked me for "kissing fic". Hahaha--I am the worst at prompts. I am still sorry.

It’s not that Sid reads exclusively  _The Hockey News_ or anything, because he appreciates literature just fine, and if you want to talk about auto-eroticism as demonstrated by Keats—well, you’d have to give him a few hours, but after that, he’d give a pretty good go at it. Still, Keats doesn’t rouse the blood-thirsting spirit quite like scoping out your linemates via sniper rifle in _Call of Duty_. Sid’s all for literacy and culture, but when traveling for away games, he prefers to maintain a baseline of constant, simmering hypercompetitiveness. Well, that’s sort of a lie: Sid tends to do that even outside of away games; any games; hockey, as a whole; okay, hypercompetitiveness is sort of Sid’s general life philosophy, but the point is, Sid’s not about to stifle it with any depressing Romantic poetry _._

Geno, though. Geno’s been harshing that vibe. Sid doesn’t know if it’s part of Geno’s “DIY Further Self-Education of Russian Literature and Spelling Project” that the newspapers like to coo about, or if Geno’s been hanging out with Bryzgalov too much (who seems to recommend  _Crime and Punishment_  with frightening fervor to anyone who might be swayed, including random strangers off the street), but Geno’s been sitting out of card games recently, absorbed in some hideously thick paperback with those Serious Literature sort of book cover.

Not knowing bothers Sid, even though it shouldn’t. On the one hand, it would be the simplest thing to ask Geno, over team dinner or during pre-practice stretches or heading down the hall into the parking garage, “What’ve you been reading lately?” Sid not doing this is ridiculous. On the other hand, of course Geno has things in his life a) separate of hockey and consequently b) separate of Sid and c) which are none of Sid’s business. Sid not recognizing this is verging into creepy boyfriend territory.

Another mostly-ridiculous and vaguely creepy-boyfriend thing that bothers Sid: Geno used to give Sid all his winnings from the card games, snack-sized packets of Reese’s Pieces and foiled wrapped Hershey’s Kisses. Sid has a hideous fondness for chocolate candies, and Geno has a hideous fondness for trolling Sid’s meal regimens. Geno also used to, sometimes, on his way back from using the toilet, stop by Sid’s seat and peer over his shoulder at the PSP screen and ask, “You losing?” with more laughing expectancy than was really flattering, but also more amused affection than really necessary to make up for any perceived insult.

“You shut your face,” Sid answers. “I never lose.”

Flower snorts.

“Asshole,” says Sid, “Maybe if you started backing me up here—” He drags his eyes away from the screen momentarily to glance up at Geno. “I don’t even know why I bother. He always ditches me for lunch,” turning back to his PSP, “—I swear, he  _likes_  airplane food. Absolutely crazy.”

“Goalies,” sympathizes Geno, with a camaraderie shared only between two forwards facing the inexplicable insanity of their goalie. Flower rolls his eyes at them.

It takes Sid some quarter-hour after Geno leaves, when Flower’s back in the game and they’ve taken out both Cooke and Tanger, to realize that Geno’s left a row of Hershey’s Kisses perched on his shoulder. Sid blinks at them, more surprised by how pleased he is than he is at their presence, until Flower snaps at him to get his head back into the game, so he does.

Geno doesn’t do this anymore, of course, because he’s not winning anything from the card games, because he’s not  _playing_  card games. And, no, it’s not like Sid can’t afford to buy his own Hershey’s Kisses. So he does, sometimes, in fits of exasperated defiance.

They don’t taste the same at all.


End file.
